"you are dead" process

Some notes on the process of this game, for anyone interested-

"you are dead" was created in 48 hours, solo, for the Ludum Dare 47 Compo (theme "stuck in a loop"). For the first few hours of the jam, I was floundering around for an idea. Even when I settled on something, it still didn’t feel very solid. I might have abandoned the jam without my partner’s encouragement–shout out to them, I’m glad I didn’t! It wasn’t until about halfway through Saturday that I really felt like I knew what I was doing.

“Stuck in a loop” reminded me of the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation, and that inspired the idea for a game set between lives, where the goal was to dodge vortices of rebirth pulling at you. I borrowed the imagery of a river from Greek mythology to make the gameplay slightly less abstract, which also inspired the rowing mechanic. One thing that really helped with the design was deciding on the core of my game—the cycle of rebirth and death—and cutting almost everything that didn’t directly support it. There were a handful of neat ideas scrapped that might not have been otherwise, but hopefully the game is better for it.

Creating visuals had me stumped for a while. Eventually I came across a Unity feature that allowed for upscaling pixels–rendering the game, then scaling pixels 2x or more without antialiasing. It allowed me to create graphics in whatever way was most convenient (sprites, line renderers, etc) and combine them with a cohesive style. I’d settled on a black and white line art style to communicate a sense of ethereality, and upscaling punched up the retro feel quite a bit. It was starting to have a “haunted arcade machine” vibe, which was perfect.

The sound came much easier. I was listing to Shlohmo while I worked, and wanted that vibe for the music. So, I spun up Bosca Ceoil, and laid down some arpeggios with a buzzy bass underneath. The chiptune synths really meshed well with the graphics style and gave it a nice 80’s vibe. Sound FX were slapped together in Bfxr, hitting the randomize button until I stumbled onto something workable. Crunchy, distorted sounds felt like the fit the mood I was going for, but also helped cover up that the sound effects weren’t pitched to the key of the music.

Balancing was the hardest part, and I spent the hours before submission fretting over it. I prioritized making the vortex strength feel “right”, and then tweaked difficulty primarily through the turning speed of the rowboat. Still not quite sure I got it right, but at least still folks seem to find it fun, if difficult.

I’m quite proud of how the game turned out. Minimalist design principles really helped create a polished product and keep stress levels down. I stumbled into the 80’s arcade aesthetic over the course of development, and it seems likes something folks really vibe with.